


How It Came To Be

by DumpsterDiving101



Category: Arsenic and Old Lace
Genre: Australia, Chicago, Death, Graphic depictions of violence - Freeform, London, M/M, Meeting, Melbourne, Murder, Plastic surgeon - Freeform, alcohalism, kinda gay, plastic surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 19:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9783167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DumpsterDiving101/pseuds/DumpsterDiving101
Summary: How Jonathan Brewster and Dr. Herman Einstein met and what happened in those five years before they stumbled back to Brooklyn.





	

When Jonathon Brewster first walked into Dr.Einsteins office, it was clear that nothing would ever be the same. 

He was tall, and slender, with the spindly fingers of spiders and a voice that you would never make the mistake of trusting. 

Dr.Einstein thought he knew the type. Jonathon didn't care what he looked like, just that he was unrecognizable. He didn't need a mole removed, he didn't need a scar lightened, he needed a new identity. And Dr.Einstein had made the mistake of giving him one. 

It was a long procedure, but when it was finally done, it was clear to see that it was some of the doctor's finest work. It was two mornings later when he walked into the man's temporary room, and startled. 

"It hurts to move my mouth," the strange man said, testing out his jaw. "I feel different. I feel... like a whole new me. I like you, doctor."

The doctor of course, was still quite fuzzy in the head from the previous night's drinks, and a nurse had to come and practically introduce him. And even though the doctor had performed the surgery, he had trouble believing this man with the raised eyebrows and bent nose was the same as that pointed, angry man he'd seen previously. 

He didn't see Jonathon for a long time after that. He'd served his purpose, gotten his pay, and moved on. The man disappeared, no longer hunted by the police. 

But a year later he was back, and he was frantic. 

"I need a new face! Tonight, doctor!" 

The doctor had refused. That was only until a gun was pressed to his temple, and the doctor decided that maybe just one more time, just one more quick operation. 

Later, he wished that he had just let Jonathon shoot him. It would have been so much easier.

But he didn't, and two days later he saw the results. A new face. And more praise. 

"It's perfect," Jonathon had said. "No one will ever recognize me. I don't think I'm going to let you get away from me."

The doctor laughed uncomfortably. "Alright Chonny."

The man had turned and given him a strange look at the name that made Einstein's blood go cold, but he didn't say anything. 

Jonathon had asked him to go with him. He was in the diamond buisness, he said, and it would be good to have a surgeon like Dr.Einstein on hand. The doctor, of course, refused. It was ridiculous- he had a nice thing going, a little office, a small but cozy apartment. 

Oh, how he yearned for that apartment. It didn't seem like much at the time, but there was food, a bed, no police or blood or knives. No nightmares. No, at the time it wasn't much, but now it seemed like heaven on earth. 

But Jonathon didn't take no for an answer. 

The following weeks were hell. Someone had caught word of the doctor operating on criminals- though he didn't explicitly, he just never asked questions- and the police came rapping at his door. He pleaded with them that he didn't know they were criminals, but the police didn't care. Jonathon offered him an escape, and like an idiot, the doctor took it. 

Jonathan had been in South Africa before meeting Einstein, then Amsterdam, and then after his first plastic surgery, back to South Africa. But now with Dr.Einstein at his side, Jonathan decided he wasn't just going to go back again- no, he had much bigger plans. 

So they went to Chicago, where it was all happening. A warm, sunny city, with an underground trade so vile and detestable that for the first month Einstein found himself retching on a regular basis. He was a doctor, which meant he had seen his fair share of the grotesque- but that didn't mean he had to like it. And the things he saw were nothing like the pictures at medical school, or even his own surgeries. In London, he had always done small operations, knife and needle and thread and pay. Chicago wasn't anything like London. 

As a doctor, Einstein had always had a healthy amount of liquor, but as the weeks waned on he found himself turning to it more and more. The substance that once made his eyes water and his throat burn was now a comfort, a soothing poison that made reality a bit easier to bear; his only friend. 

Besides Jonathan. Yes, it always came back to Jonathan. In truth, he didn't need Einstein for surgeries as much as he needed him for an audience. Someone to rationalize situations that weren't rational to make them oh so enjoyable. In fact, Jonathan almost seemed disappointed when Einstein turned to alcohol, because it meant that the different horrors he saw throughout the day didn't effect him as much. No more retching. Einstein got sick off the alcohol a few times, but before long his body grew painfully used to the constant poison and adjusted for it. 

Of course, Jonathan found more ways, new ways to make the doctors hands shake and stomach churn. He didn't kill for the sake of death- he did it for sport. Some people in the business just had to be eliminated. Jonathan made sure their deaths were events. 

Luckily, most of his events were cut short, either by time, police, or the person dying before he wanted them too. He was always miserable those nights, moaning and griping about how it wasn't fair, and he needed to kill the next person better. When he was sober- which he hardly was- Einstein would joke to himself about how Jonathon was his own worst critic. 

Criticism must run in the family, he would think with a chuckle, remembering back to those newspaper clippings Jonathan kept in his bag, reviews his brother, Mortimer Brewster, had published in the paper. Sometimes Einstein would wake in the early hours of the morning to Jonathan's pacing, and watch the man mumble to himself angrily, about brothers and papers and needles. Einstein never asked. He didn't want to know. 

He never understood why Jonathan hated his brother so, but soon it just became a fact of life. Not upsetting, per say, just another on the long list of things that made Jonathan furious. After seeing the things he had, Einstein often had horrible nightmares, and sometimes he would wake up and listen to Jonathan mumbling in his sleep for hours. Mortimer was a constant character in the psychopath's dreams. 

One night in Melbourne, Jonathan had a particular dream that left him disheveled and disoriented all day. 

"You should have seen it, Doctor," he spoke sharply, his eyes darting to the corners of the alley dangerously. "The blood, the strips of skin-" The doctor uncapped his flask, almost choking on the liquor as he forced it down his throat. "It was beautiful. Absolutely.... breathtaking."

Breathtaking indeed, as the dream involved Jonathan killing his brother in the most painful way the man could summon up. 

He had almost finished describing the horrible scene when a dark figure turned into the alley, and froze. "You're not supposed to be here," he said lowly. 

"Neither are you," Jonathan agreed. Three long strides forwards, and before the man could so much as throw a punch he was swung around by the collar of his shirt and sent skittering against the sidewalk. 

Einstein's hands were shaking so badly he couldn't get the cal back off his flask. By now, he should be used to it. He'd witnessed enough of Jonathan's killings by now that it should be completely normal to him, he shouldn't feel so violently ill. But Jonathan wasn't in the right frame of mind. Einstein almost stumbled forwards, almost tried to help the now injured man escape, but then he would suffer Jonathan's wrath and he might have been drunk, might have been violently ill, but he was not that stupid. 

Jonathan beat the poor man until he was barely conscious, and just when Einstein thought the worst was over, Jonathan announced that they were bringing the man to the small house they were staying in the finish the job. It ended up taking two hours, two full hours, for Jonathan to kill him. Then he simply put the instruments he used in the sink with a "You can wash these and put them back in your bag in the morning, doctor," and headed off to bed. Halfway down the hallway, he froze. "Are you coming doctor?"

The doctor had actually been frozen in place, staring horror struck at the bound, bloodied body in the middle of the kitchen, but Jonathan's words stirred him. "Ja Chonny, I'm coming. Just... just one second."

"I haven't felt this good in ages," Jonathan said happily, a sliver of a smile ghosting on his lips. "Come doctor, we'll go to bed now."

The doctor opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He was in no place to object. Finally, tearing his gaze away from the mutilated form, he turned to the tall, lean man and nodded solemnly. "Okay, Chonny. I go to bed now."


End file.
